


Thirty Pieces

by omphale23



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Ficmix, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/pseuds/omphale23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then you become a paratrooper, and things get a little crazy. You never know what to expect when you jump out of perfectly good airplanes into a hail of bullets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirty Pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sansets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansets/gifts).



> You guys, I don't even know what this is. It wants to be fanmix and it wants to be fic and I think, maybe, it wants to be the way I see this story ending. Maybe after this I'll just be filling in the spaces between the notes. Maybe it's songfic and I have officially become one with my inner fanbrat.
> 
> Anyway. For what it's worth, this is what I get when I think of Winters/Nixon.

"The Red Light" **Joel Plaskett Emergency**

_don't waste a lifetime waiting in vain  
you know i used to feel unlucky  
now i just feel strange_

If you're Lewis Nixon, you grew up a pampered rich kid with a fucked up family. You are the grandson of an engineering genius and your father claims you will never amount to anything. You are a drunk, a college boy, a dilettante, and for a few months in San Francisco, an MP. You have become used to being a disappointment, and so when you meet a gangly kid who refuses to admit that you're a bad influence, you shake your head and offer him a drink.

And then you become a paratrooper, and things get a little crazy. You never know what to expect when you jump out of perfectly good airplanes into a hail of bullets.  
***

"War Buddies" **Harvey Danger**

_let's be war buddies  
waist deep in big muddy  
side by side i'd be  
the atheist in your foxhole anytime_

 

If you're Dick Winters, you grew up with a Mennonite mother in the farm country of Pennsylvania. You worked your ass off in college, started out a private and made it all way to OCS. You are the oldest, and responsible, and you are quiet when you need to be quiet and well-versed in the concept of turning the other cheek.

You wanted to join the Airborne because they were the best and they looked good in the uniforms as they double-timed past in the early morning. You still want that, more than you wanted anything else before it, and no one else seems to understand what that means.

You don't swear. You don't drink and you don't smoke. And so what are you doing instead?  
***

"All I Need" **Matchbox Twenty**

_everywhere someone is getting over  
everybody cries and sometimes  
you can still lose even if you really try_

Even when you think you're only looking for a warm body, someone to replace the girl back home, the universe is playing around with your heart. If you could just remember that, life would be a whole lot simpler. Life would be more time for fun, and less time spent carefully ignoring the way Dick's shoulders look in a sweat-damp PT shirt.  
***

"Homesick" **Soul Asylum**

_ and there's a place for us  
stuck inside this fleeting moment   
tucked away where no one owns it_

Nothing is crueler than an idealist who discovers under fire that the world isn't fair. Or that the pacifist lessons of childhood don't mean anything when everyone you meet either wants you dead or wants you to kill people.

You are not a man who falls into or out of love easily. And Nixon, for all that he'd like to believe himself shallow, is the same way underneath. That's why this isn't love, it's just convenience. It's comfort. It's a passing fancy that happens to involve tanks and mortar rounds and murmured conversations over burnt coffee and canned noodles.  
***

"Buried" **Alkaline Trio**

_you never lie but it's no fun to tell the truth  
i guess i've never loved but i will see what i can do  
got so much life to waste that i would   
take my days and hand them to you_

If you choose to share a billet and stand too close and look but never ever touch, people will ignore it. They won't talk about it, and they won't judge you for it, and they won't place bets on how long it'll take before you trip your redheaded best friend into a ditch and knock some sense into him.

Well, no. They'll do all of those things, but they'll also lock the two of you in an empty tool shed overnight if necessary. You'd shoot the ones responsible, but they leave a bottle of whiskey and a blanket.  
***

"Ask" **The Smiths**

_coyness is nice, and  
coyness can stop you  
from saying all the things in  
life you'd like to_

There is a fine line between being polite and being an idiot. And sometimes, in a town in France, you hit that line and cross it and somebody has to ask the question that's been there all along. One of you has to be brave.  
***

"Church On Sunday" **Green Day**

_if i promise to go to church on sunday  
will you go with me on friday night?  
if you live with me i'll die for you  
and this compromise_

Dick puts up with a lot, and he doesn't complain. He just snarks a lot and does passive-aggressive shit when it all gets to be too much. It's lucky for everyone that you grew up on a steady diet of crazy and bitter and are practically immune to his brand of sarcasm. It's sweet, that he knows he can be himself when you're the only one listening.  
***

"Peace Of Me" **Natasha Bedingfield**

_had a plan couldn't follow  
had a dream it was hollow_

Eventually you get slightly shot in the head and find out that the only thing holding you together is your best friend. There's nothing scarier than the realization that it isn't lust, it isn't buddies, it's love. Unless it's the realization that if you know you're in love, you might have to tell him.  
***

"Cowboys and Angels" **George Michael**

_why should i imagine that i'd be a find for you  
why should i imagine that i'd have something to say_

Sometimes "Am I all right?" sounds an awful lot like _i love you don't leave me_, and it's terrible to watch someone who belongs to you die by inches and degrees and moments of drunken clarity. And maybe it's stupid, but you keep watching because there might be an instant when you make the difference between life and death, between the past and the future.  
***

"Every Man I Fall For" **Cold War Kids**

_every man i fall for works the graveyard shift  
he kisses me softly to wake me up  
and takes my place in bed_

Sharing 1.5 foxholes is more awkward than just sharing the one. After all, if there's nothing going on, why bother to go through the motions of pretending that you're using them both? Still, it gives him a place to set up his shaving equipment in the mornings, which means that you get to sleep until dawn actually breaks. It's like having a guest room, only it isn't a room and no one would ever visit the two of you here.  
***

"The One You Love" **Rufus Wainwright**

_the mind has so many pictures  
why can't i sleep with my eyes open  
the mind has so many memories_

There are cold places, and dark places, and lonely places. And then there are the places where there are no words for the things you see, and the things you do, and the people you become. These are the places no one comes home from, and the places that never leave you.  
***

"On/Off" **Snow Patrol**

_i knew it would hurt you but not like this  
we all make a mess from time to time, dear  
but it'll take me a lifetime to get this cleared_

The best way to get out of a situation that means too much, cuts too close, is to do something so phenomenally stupid that the other person kicks you out on your ass. And it worked every other time, because nobody else has been as phenomenally stubborn as Richard Fucking Winters.  
***

"Whiskey Tango" **Tanya Donelly**

_you're just a freckle away from changing everything  
i'll make this easy by calling on  
my gypsy pedigree_

You share things but don't speak them, not when there are bullets and chances and people watching. Not when time keeps ticking and you've both lived longer than the statistics say is possible. You don't say them before you leave for a jump, and you don't say them when you get back and the rest of your stick died in an explosion somewhere over Germany. You don't say them because you know that would be tempting fate, and fate has never been on your side. You don't say them because you both can hear everything without the words hanging in the air.  
***

"If Love Was A Gun" **Divinyls**

_no doubt we've burned it all out  
our summer's been and gone_

When you want someone else to be happy you have to think about whether he'd be happier if you let him go. And once you think about it, he can see it in your eyes.  
***

"23" **Jimmy Eat World**

_no one else will know these lonely dreams  
no one else will know that part of me  
i'm still driving away_

There are things you know, and things you suspect, and none of these are things you can offer as reasons. You can't go back, can't commit to it all in a snowdrift in Belgium and then hold the truth inside because someone gives an order. You can't tell a lie, not even once, not to his face and not when he asks the right question. As soon as you do, it's all broken and you've had no practice at fixing broken things.

That's always been his job, and he doesn't always look like he wants it anymore.  
***

"Space" **Something Corporate**

_there's no antidote for irony you say  
that you have when you know that you don't  
and you say that you can when you know that you won't_

He drinks to hide what he won't say, and you watch and you wait and you don't say a word. You give him space, because he asks it, and because you need it, and because you're tired. Tired of holding on with both hands, tired of picking up the pieces, tired of the whole thing, the war and the loneliness and the nights when he doesn't come back and wake you up falling into bed. You'd do it forever, but you can't see how it ends and you think he likes that.

So you volunteer for a place that will probably kill you, because that's the only way out. And when he wants to come along, you don't have the words to say _you can't be with me because if you take another bullet it'll take us both_.  
***

"Straitjacket Feeling" **The All-American Rejects**

_i'm holding on by letting go of you  
and when that memory slips away  
there will be a better view from here_

Dick says he'll come home with you, meet your family, and that was something you never expected. You thought this was a thing, a place, that could be left behind. And when he finally agrees, he looks surprised, like his heart has chosen something his brain doesn't agree to follow.

And so you both go home, to jobs and houses and the girl who was supposed to be temporary but turns out to be your wife. He doesn't ask what you are to each other, and neither do you. You keep a space there, full of all the words that you've never said. You fill it with whiskey and promises and bitter, bitter fury.  
***

"We're Not Right" **David Gray**

_all those crazy faces run through my mind  
and that song has brought a teardrop to my eye  
can't tell the bottle from the mountain top_

The drinking, it turns out, is bigger than the war and bigger than you and bigger than anything and everything else. It was always too big, even when you ignored it, and you may be as stubborn as a mule but even you know when a battle is lost and another pass into enemy territory will just get people killed. Even you know when it's time to walk away and start over someone else.  
***

"It Looks Like Rain" **Jann Arden**

_every prayer i ever said  
seemed strangely answered now_

You go to the wedding and congratulate them both, even though you can't look Dick in the eye and he knows, recognizes that tone of your voice, is the only one who can hear the anger and the defeat and the longing. You see him off at the station when he rejoins the army and you don't kiss him goodbye because that's not what you do, isn't what you've ever done. That's what wives are for.

You do all the things a best friend does, and then you go home and you get very, very drunk. Because that's what you always do when your heart is broken.  
***

"In the Sun" **Donna De Lory**

_i know i would apologize if i could see your eyes  
cause when you showed me myself i became someone else  
i was caught in between all you wish for and all you need_

If he has any faith left, anything that's bigger than what you lost together and what you've taken from him to keep yourself sane, you hope Lew uses it to make himself happy. You think that's what he'll do, now that you're finally gone. Now that you've got that farm you thought you wanted, and kids and a wife and all the things you're supposed to need to move on.  
***

"World Spins Madly On" **The Weepies**

_i watch the stars from my window sill  
the whole world is moving and i'm standing still_

Dick is a bastard and you hate him most mornings. You're glad he's left and you don't care what he's doing right now, even though you know he's up already, running before he leaves for work and kissing his wife goodbye and living his life and probably not thinking of you. You don't need to get up for anything, so you don't.

You go back to sleep, and when he telephones you let it ring and ring and ring.  
***

"Younger" **Dave King**

_i remember being younger  
and the feeling's still the same  
always tried to get to know you_

It's five years before you see each other again, stranded on opposite ends of a restaurant table with ten guys in between, all telling old stories and laughing and carefully keeping the two of you apart without seeming to notice.

You didn't tell anyone what happened, and you know that Lew didn't, that he never lost control enough for that, and so maybe the two of you weren't as good at keeping secrets as you thought. Maybe Lip and Ron were watching over more than the enlisted men. Maybe Doc and Babe weren't just swapping stories of home all those nights. The world is full of maybes now.

Whoever's fault it is, you're both relieved and inexplicably frustrated that in three days, you only manage to exchange ten words without someone interrupting and dragging you away. None of those words are the sort you'd repeat in polite company.  
***

"The Perfect Ending" **Straylight Run**

_it's that sorta thing that makes you think too much  
it's that sorta thing that makes you lose your objectivity  
so if you made it just be glad that you did and stay there_

He still looks the same, and you hate that your chest clenches when he walks into the room. You hate that you look away first, and that he's still _him_, still tall and strong and more himself than anyone else you've ever met. You hate that you haven't changed, either. You hate that he's the pivot you revolve around, and that there isn't enough whiskey in the world to make that untrue.

Hate feels a little like love, but you push it under the anger and go back to the bar for another round.  
***

"Liberty" **Vertical Horizon**

_for every time i've seen you smile  
there are two times that i have cried_

For someone so smart, Lewis Nixon is an awful liar. He got away with it the first time, but by the third year everyone's forgotten that the two of you are to be kept busy, as if the room will dissolve should some boundary be crossed. By then, it looks like the worst has passed and the third time really is the charm.

Lew is a terrible liar and that was always the biggest problem, bigger than the drinking and the anger and the fear. He lied so many times, always hiding the truth, refusing to admit that he loved you back, that you were someone he needed.

But you've always suspected it, and so when he follows you out into the parking lot, you know what's coming next. You let him get too close, brace yourself for the punch you've been waiting for him to land for years and continents and a pair of wars. When he pushes you up against the wall of the stairwell and threads his fingers into your hair and mutters _tell me not to do this_ you don't say a word.  
***

"Miss Those Days" **Ten Mile Tide**

_can i call you my friend  
you asked as you took my hand  
call me any name you can  
just look at me like that again_

You're married again. He's still married. Your wives become friends and no one mentions any of it, because you have managed to marry women who are smarter than you both. You're friends, and that's strange and painful and cold, but at least it's something.

You don't give up all your vices, but you replace a few of them with something quieter. You try to want only what you can have and sometimes it's almost enough. You take your lessons from Dick, who never asks for what you won't give him.  
***

"Missing the War" **Ben Folds Five**

_i'm missing the war  
till beads of sunlight hit  
me in the morning and i forget_

You're good at being what you need to be, and if that gets harder every week, every month, every long visit and letter and calm phone call full of useless news and old stories, you still think it's worth the effort. You broke him into pieces once, and Lew is finally happy the way he ought to be. He deserves something he can hold onto for more than a few nights in a hotel room in California, more than a street in Paris or a house in Austria.

He deserves all the moments you promised him in a foxhole a lifetime ago. It's been fifteen years, and surely that's enough time for the two of you to leave the war behind.  
***

"Keep the Light On" **The Whitlams**

_you try so hard to be alive  
what else can you do but close your eyes  
you can't see the beautiful way when you're burning so bright _

The next year, you don't show up for the reunion at all. You stay home, open a bottle, and try not to think about bullets and bombs and promises and hope. It doesn't work, but in a few hours you're drunk enough that you don't really care.

When he shows up at the door, dripping wet and furious behind his eyes, Grace lets him in and says she and Ethel will be back on Monday. She looks at the two of you and smiles, that strange serenity that made you love her enough to climb back into living, and then she winks.

Dick is so shocked that he forgets to breathe. You laugh, and wave her out the door.  
***

"Enough To Go By" **Vienna Teng**

_i'm at your back door with the earth of   
a hundred nations in my skin you won't recognize me   
for the light in my eyes is strange_

Lew doesn't show up, and you panic. You can think of all the places he might be and none of them are good, none of them are _here_, and you don't think about what that means or what he's done or what you'll say. For once, you don't think at all, you just move. You run, and then you drive, and then you run again. It's raining, and you've left your coat at the hotel, and when the door opens you don't know what to say.

Standing in his hallway, with his third wife tugging the door shut behind you, it seems like you're back at the beginning. And so, because you may be starting over but you've both been here before, you ask him for a drink.

He smirks, that same look he gave in another decade before you broke his heart, and then offers something better.  
***

"In The Battle of Sun vs. Curtains, Sun Loses and We Sleep Until Noon" **Woodpigeon**

_i don't want to have to quantify the ones i love  
don't want to tell the reason why there's no one else   
in the meantime won't you be mine_

It's not perfect, but nothing is. You're not sure what you'd do with perfect, anyway.


End file.
